Does Google want to have another pop at social notworking?

Does Google want to have another go at social notworking? If rumours over the weekend are to be believed then the answer could be yes. According to rumour-prone Digg co-founder, Kevin Rose, Google could be launching a social networking site called Google Me.

He wrote on his Twitter page: “Ok, umm, huge rumour: Google to launch a Facebook competitor very soon “Google Me” very credible source.”

We contacted both Google and Facebook. Neither wanted to comment, with a Google representative telling us: “There are always so many Google rumours going around so we have a corporate policy not to comment on them. Sorry”

However, according to Fastcompany: “Kevin Rose is almost as well known for his breaking of rumours as he is for founding and running Digg–his predictions, especially as regards Apple products, have often been unnervingly on the mark.”

For a while now Google has had its fingers in many social networking pies and is always working on new projects, most recently Buzz. It owns Orkut which has a huge market share of the social notworking crowd in South America.

Could Google be looking to expand on Orkut and either relaunch, or create a new service specifically tailored to the North American and European markets?